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Getting Familiar with Android Studio

After installing Android Studio and creating your first project, the next step in your Android development journey is to get familiar with the IDE. With so many windows, icons, and menu items, Android Studio might seem overwhelming at first. Once you explore the basic tools, though, you’ll see the IDE isn’t all that scary. Here’s an example of what you’ll see:

Android Studio Project Screen
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Resizing Windows

You can resize windows to increase and decrease the space they take on your screen. Hover your mouse between the project window and the editor window until you see the mouse arrow turn into a resizing icon. Click and drag the window edge left and right. The windows will resize accordingly.

Hiding and Showing Windows

In addition to resizing, most windows can be hidden or detached from the IDE and float on your screen. The editor window is the only window that cannot be hidden or undocked. Here are two easy ways to hide a window:

Detaching Windows

Android Studio windows have five different View Modes. These modes give you the flexibility to arrange the windows and set up your development environment according to your preferences. To change the view mode of the project window, open the context menu. To do this, find the vertical Kabob icon on the top right of the window. Look for three dots arranged in a vertical order. Click the Kabob icon, and the context menu will open. Click View Mode, and you’ll see a list of view modes you can set.

Window - View Mode Menu
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Managing Resources

Now that you know your way around an Android Studio window, you can start looking at other available windows and tools. Around the border of the IDE, you’ll find icons grouped on the far left, bottom left, and far right. The first group of icons on the far left towards the top includes the Project window and Resource Manager window. Hover over the icon with your mouse and the tooltip will let you know what window that icon represents. You’ve seen the project window already. Click the Resource Manager icon to open the resource manager window. The resource manager window will display on the left panel of the screen.

Resource Manager Window
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More Windows

There’s another group of icons on the bottom left of the IDE. There’s an icon for the Terminal, Logcat, and Problems windows. Notice that those windows will open across the bottom by default when docked.

Managing SDKs

The Android Software Development Kit (SDK) is a set of tools provided by Google for you to create applications on the Android platform. It includes everything you need to build, test, and debug Android apps. The Android SDK is closely tied to Android API versions.

Accessing SDK Manager
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SDK Manager
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Setting Preferences

The SDK Manager is an example of how to use the Settings Window. Android Studio allows you to manage other options via the settings window. To access the settings window on macOS, click Android Studio from the top menu bar, then click Settings (On Windows, you click File, then click Settings). After the Window opens, click Appearance & Behavior on the left panel. The screen should look like the image below.

Appearance & Behavior Window
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Installing Plugins

Now that you are more familiar with the IDE and have customized it to your liking, it’s time you learned about plugins. Plugins are additional software components that extend the functionality of the IDE. Developers, third-party organizations, or Google can create them. Once they are created, they are distributed through a plugin repository for all to use. Some common types of plugins are code quality and inspection, version control integration, and database tools.

Plugin Manager
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